A Game-Changing Ping Pong Table

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CreditCreditFederico Ciamei

By Nancy Hass

July 12, 2016

Ping-Pong was first played in Victorian England, often with a row of books laid across the dining table as a net and a champagne cork volleyed between paddles made from cigar-box tops. Recently, the sport has been pursued with less glamorous accouterments. Until the Milan-based furniture designer Paolo Calcagni created perhaps the ultimate table: custom-hewed from flame-grained walnut briar-root (it can also be made from cherry or rosewood) with elegantly angular brass and wood legs and a net of Tuscan-tanned leather. Zebrawood paddles included.